Shadowsmeet
by Flying Goldfish
Summary: Dragons, inquisitive students, a convalescent Time Lord and his Tardis... A recipe for humour... or for the end of the world? 16 Chapters, with appearances by UNIT, a new Doctor, new companions, and a lot of the Tardis.
1. Chapter One: One Time Out of Ten

_Disclaimer: Doctor Who is copyright of the BBC. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is copyright Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. Brigadier Bambera is (presumably) copyright Ben Aaronovitch. The University of Oxford is hopefully copyright of itself. No attempt is made, has been made, or will ever be made to supersede this or any other copyright. This story is entirely non-profit-making._

Author's Notes:  
A new start, with a new Doctor. This story should work as an overall 'introduction', so if you're lost, canon-wise, don't fret. Still, to help you find your feet, the Doctor is currently on Earth, recovering and mending his time ship after a fairly explosive battle. Details on this will be revealed during the course of the story. The story is sixteen chapters long, and they'll be uploaded as and when I get the time to HTMLise them. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long. Any and all reviews extremely welcome.

* * *

**Shadowsmeet  
by Flying Goldfish  
Part One:  
Here there be Dragons**

  
Chapter 1:_ One time out of ten._  
  
Mike looked ill-favouredly down at the crumpled letter one more time and wondered why he'd come. It had come out of the blue, and had been the first letter he'd had in his letterbox without a little cellophane window in it since Susanne had suddenly broken off contact, without explanation. He'd tried ringing her of course, but the mobile number he had seemed to have stopped working. It wouldn't have been a difficult job for him to find her, at least he liked to tell himself that it wouldn't have been, but at the end of the day, if she'd decided to cut him off without even a word, even a hint that things weren't all right between them, he decided she wasn't worth finding. Still, even after six months he'd felt his heart jog a bit at the sight of a handwritten envelope in amongst the unpaid and unpayable bills. That was part of it, a simple pleasure at reading someone's thoughts on paper, good, tactile paper, not just shorthand notes engraved on electrons to 'michael.de-gris- nez@wanadoo.fr'.

That wasn't to say, of course, that the contents of the letter hadn't intrigued him. He'd been in the business, or at least had had an office with the business's name up on the door for two years now, and so far no one had written him a single impassioned, enigmatic plea for help. That it came from home, and from the local vicar of all people, had probably tipped the balance. He'd packed a suitcase, chosen if not his best things then his most dark, mysterious, and enigmatic things, and returned home, to British soil in name if not in sense. Almost the instant he stepped off the ferry on to the little Channel Island of Herm, it had started to rain. He'd stood on the seafront, a gaunt figure in grey trenchcoat and black jeans, the rain bonding his lank, mouse-coloured hair into long, limp spines, and dripping from the tip of his prominent nose, and tried to visualise just how much of an idiot he looked. He'd waited for nearly forty-five minutes before the Reverend Andwell had appeared, apologising profusely and trying to thank Mike for coming at the same time. At that moment, Mike de Gris-nez had altered some of his assumptions about Reverend Joseph Andwell. 

He remembered Joseph from his childhood on the island, a slow moving, quick thinking man, old even then, thin but paunched, his brow heavy, but his face kind. The old man had been a good friend of his family- pillars of the church that they were, Mike remembered with some amusement, and even when it became painfully clear that Mike was more likely to believe in Dangermouse than God, Andwell had always had a kind word for him. 

They had never been close though, perhaps spoken two dozen words together in all their lives, so that the vicar should even remember Mike's name, much less how to find him after all this time surprised the young man somewhat. Then he'd read the letter. Andwell was in trouble, it seemed, or at least he had a problem, a problem in which he would appreciate some help. Mike had, reluctantly, agreed. It was probably nothing more than some tedious little irregularity in the parish registers, but with his father dead and his mother now in England- the mainland he'd sworn to himself never to visit, he had little excuse to return home from France for any other reason, and had felt it would be quite nice to see the places he grew up again. On the journey- two hours by TGV to the port, then the hydrofoil across to Guernsey, then finally the ferry here, he'd turned Joseph Andwell's letter over and over again, each time reading more into it. Fear. That was what he'd read there. Andwell was, or thought he was, entangled in something far too big for him. Fear, and a sense of religious awe. Please God he hadn't been brought here to solve some damned miracle!

All that had changed though, in the instant he'd seen the old vicar's face, and that was the moment that he now wished, toiling up the hillside in the pitch-black, expecting any moment to slip and break leg, back, or neck, that he'd turned round and caught the next ferry straight back. The man wasn't scared, the man was stark staring mad.

"It's not far now!" Joseph shouted from up ahead. Mike gritted his teeth together. He knew that. On this benighted island there really wasn't that far you could go, and this rough path, one he remembered from his schooldays, was one with only one end- a small rocky outcrop, perched uncomfortably high atop a sheer cliff. It was not the sort of place one went in the dark, unless one wished to be alone with a date and all the saner places were taken. He eyed Andwell- vicar, client, and annoyance- in the back murderously.

"If this is some bloody weeping statue I'm pushing you over that cliff."

"What?" Andwell called back, his words snatched away by the wind. Mike ignored him. They were nearly there now- he could just make out the tops of the trees on the little islet out beyond the bay over the horizon. He slowed his pace. Ahead, Andwell stopped, just short of the precipitous outcropping, and flung out an arm towards the islet. "There you are, Michael." 

He looked. 

"There I am, what?" The islet- it was too insignificant to have been given a proper name, and he didn't chose to remember any of the silly childish names they'd given it as children- was there, as normal. It didn't have hordes of angels gathered overhead, or a ghostly stable, light flickering in its open- he stopped. There was a light on the island actually, a dim red light, flickering slightly. "Someone's lit a campfire over there." Reverend Andwell shook his head. The man was beaming like an idiot. Mike found himself dearly wishing to punch the old vicar clean over the cliff edge.

"Why couldn't we see this in the morning?"

"They're naturally nocturnal- and shy, for obvious reasons."

A flicker of sanity. Andwell had always been a bit of a naturalist- in fact, come to think of it, that had probably been why Mike's name had occurred to him. It had, after all, been Mike, amongst others, who had managed to import four rather ill- tempered snakes into the church hall one summer in his youth. Still, there was no reason why this couldn't have waited another night, until he'd rested from his journey.

"Look, Joseph, if you've discovered some new variety of something or other, don't you think a scientist would be better to... I mean, they don't all take things away and cut them up." Andwell shook his head.

"They'd cut these up soon enough... and worse. They're not a new variety. They are... they are just new... and wonderful." Mike looked at him. The wind was rising, a dull beating motion. 

"Listen, I'm flattered that you thought of me in this, but if you're worried about scientists mistreating whatever it is you've discovered then it's a solicitor you want, not a private eye... and please, none of this mystery business, just tell me what it is you've got here."

The older man turned back out towards the sea and stared out across the skyline.

"They will come soon... I can't describe it, Michael, so beautiful, so awesome in their majesty." Andwell's face was fixed with a look of manic ecstasy. Mike felt a stab of guilt. He'd forgotten just how old the vicar was by now. He shouldn't be out in this weather, and if his mind was beginning to go then he needed compassion, needed to be led gently back to the house and talked out of his folly, not impatient glares. After all, Andwell was paying him to waste his time. Somehow that just made it worse.

"Let's go back, Joseph. We can come again on a better night." There was something flapping somewhere- perhaps a loose tarpaulin of even some badly stowed sail- beating hard in time with the wind. He tried to work out where the sound was coming from, all the while affording the vicar his kindest, most compassionate face. He was unprepared for the vehemence of the old man's reply.

"Don't treat me like some senile old idiot, Michael. I know precisely what I saw, and I know you won't believe a word of it unless you see it too, so you just stand there until I say so!" Andwell bristled at him, then turned back into the storm, his head cocked at the flapping sound. Mike followed his line of vision, and felt an icicle stroke his heart. There was something up there. An indistinct shape, moving below the clouds. An aeroplane? An aeroplane with great wings that flapped in the storm, an aeroplane with light in its eyes and fire in its mouth. 

Michael de Gris-nez often quoted a particular maxim in his dealings with clients: 

"Expectation varies inversely with accuracy." Anyone who thinks he or she has witnessed a shoplifter at work probably has, anyone who thinks he's seen a Martian Warship landing has probably seen a passing helicopter. Put another way, the fantastic is fantastic only because it doesn't happen very often. Reality is extremely mundane, nine times out of ten.

Andwell motioned for them to both take a few paces back and he did so. Of course, it needs room to land, his brain noted mechanically. The beast settled carefully on the rocky outcropping, its wings folding into slack-webbed arms like a bat, the claws gripping the boulders of the cliff almost nervously. It was a little over twice the size of a horse, and a dull colour that might have been brown or red, or even a dark green. The body was plump, and covered with something midway between scale and feather, the wings leathery and hard. Its long neck folded sinuously upon itself and the reptile head lowered to the vicar's outstretched hand. Gently, the old man caressed the creature's jaw. 

"They are the lost wonder of our world," Andwell breathed, his eyes never leaving the beast. "The greatest of God's creatures."

Mike swallowed. The animal's head jerked up a few feet, and nervous intelligent eyes fixed on his own.

"It's all right," the vicar whispered to the dragon. "This is Michael... he's much wiser in the ways of this world than I am. He'll find a way to make things work for you, I promise." 

Mike looked the creature in the eye.

"Well, what do you know," one corner of his mind remarked quietly to the rest of it. "One time out of ten?" 

* 

Gwen Mifhaise scanned the crowd for her brother. No, he hadn't arrived yet. Well, either that or he'd arrived and got so bored waiting that he'd just wandered off again. No, that wasn't too likely. Once Philip had a plan, he stuck to it, even if reason, common sense and occasionally the law were against him. It wasn't that his plans in themselves were ever anything short of comprehensive and ingenious, it was just that he utterly refused to take any account whatsoever of changing circumstances. 

"The world was like this when I started," he'd been known to remark, "and if it's not where it's supposed to be when I'm finished then that's its problem, not mine."

The weather was fairly clement today at least, she noted, trying to step over or around Gloucester Green's pigeon population and find her way along the corrugated iron and plastic shelter to Bay 15, where Philip's coach was due to arrive. Just as she'd found a clear route an old lady wielding a tartan shopping trolley bag emerged from a bookshop in the adjacent shopping centre and stopped still, her back to Gwen, with no apparent intention of moving in any direction. The young woman grit her teeth, pressing herself against the brick wall to squeeze past the herd of tourists and visitors- a herd which seemed to be displaying very slow Brownian Motion- and continued on her way, casting a quick glance at her watch. Tutorial with Dr Smith in half an hour. That would easily leave enough time to get Philip back up to college, install him in her room with instructions not to touch anything, and get her things ready for the tutorial, providing the bus wasn't late. She reached the bay. There he was, a tall man with short hair of a vivid ginger whose only style could be said to be 'untidy haystack', looking about himself with an air that was two parts confusion to one part studied contempt. She yelled his name and he turned, his face bearing a nascent goatee and a scar like a four-toed catscratch across the forehead.

"Gwen." He gave her a rather taut, edgy smile. When they were younger, people had often mistaken them for twins- Philip was the elder by three years- but the sudden spurt of growth he'd put on in his teens, not to mention what Gwen desperately assured herself were radically different temperaments, had put a stop to that long ago. Now here she was, in her second year at Oxford, being taught metaphysics and epistemology by a man whose office timetable covered a couple of centuries and kept a charred looking telephone box in his study, and Philip was out in the wide world, having had some degree of success with his first novel, and apparently some way into writing his second. Actually, it would be fair to say that Philip and Dr Smith had quite a bit in common, not least their pained reactions to her rather bleak sense of humour.

"Well then, how goes my sister's life in her ivory tower?" Philip gathered up his bags- a grey rucksack and a carrier bag that had probably once contained food but now seemed full of empty wrappers and drink cartons, and looked at her. She cast a pointed glance, which he either failed to decode or simply ignored, to the nearby litter bin, and replied. 

"I'm doing pretty well, I think. I mean, the drink and the drugs and the constant partying get you down after a while, but I've done a bit of work... once this term, I'm sure." Philip nodded, turning his attention to the bus station. 

"This would be a marvellous place to start a fascist dictatorship." She ignored that. Philip liked to make outrageous off-the-cuff remarks every so often. Since they were usually barely outrageous enough to offend a long-sequestered nun, and frequently needed much rehearsal to make them sound truly off-the-cuff, they tended to more suggest that he was carrying on some second conversation that no one else had bothered to listen to. Gwen and her brother didn't 'communicate'- they just said whatever seemed appropriate in the vague hope that they would occasionally corelate with one another. 

"Listen," she waited until she could be fairly sure that he was. "I've got a tutorial in about twenty-five minutes, so we're going to have to get on now." She turned and aimed a shoulder through the crowd, keeping her head turned sideways to check that he was following in her wake. "So I'll just park you in my room for now, if that's OK, and show you round the city later?" 

Philip nodded, which seemed to satisfy her, and they continued on their way. Oxford looked like his kind of place, from what he'd seen from the coach, and for a moment a bit of an old resentment flared up, to be swiftly quelled. He was beyond silly little details like that now, wasn't he? The place was somewhere to be, nothing more, and it fulfilled its function in that regard admirably.

"Who's the tutorial with?" He repeated the question, and she responded, 

"Doctor Smith." Philip nodded. Smith was his sister's favourite tutor, from what her letters home made out- an almost made-to-measure eccentric who knew how to teach and wasn't hopelessly out of touch with his students' priorities. Apparently some of the Finalists in the year above Gwen had found him a bit too lax, rarely having much inclination to keep anyone to deadlines, and more interested, one had said, with playing the part of an Oxford Don than actually being one, but Gwen had bonded well with him. Philip was rather looking forward to meeting the good Doctor, for several reasons. Just one other thing he had to know... 

They walked at forced march past Worcester College, Gwen leading him a dance across the road past aggravated motorists. Once they were on the pavement again he drew level with her. "Did you hear on the news this morning?" Philip asked, making idle conversation. She shook her head before he had a chance to go on. 

"Saving money- I didn't buy a Radio Times this week, so I've no idea when anything's on." He nodded. 

"Oh well, it was on when I was travelling down- apparently they've found some sort of colony of monitor lizards out in the Scilly Isles... or the Channel Islands. One or the other." Gwen raised her eyebrows slightly. 

"Monitor as in dragon?" She scratched her head. "I wouldn't have thought they'd be able to survive in that climate." 

"Well, they've got biologists and biochemists clogging up all the ports trying to get down there, the news said- I'm surprised you haven't heard about it up here." He looked at her carefully. Gwen shook her head, and _a dragon passed overhead, gouts of flame tearing into the streets and houses and people. Guinevere screamed, more from pain than fear as the wave of heat rolled over her, and let fly an arrow at the beast's stomach. The arrow went wide, the creature curled round in the air and plunged towards her and she was alone in a darkened room. Something itched on the back of her hand. She scratched at it, and felt something small squirm beneath her finger. She brought her hand up to the light. A tiny silverfish curled defensively in her hand. Irritated, she flicked it to the floor, then checked the palm of her other hand to make sure she hadn't simply transferred it. No, it had gone. Then more came, three crawling over from the other side of her hand, one between each finger. Shuddering, she struck them away, but more streamed from her cuff. She coughed, and eight of the tiny gleaming crustaceans flew from her mouth. There was a tickling in her nostrils, a horrible creeping feeling at the corners of her eyes and _ Gwen shivered.

"Something wrong?" Philip had a hand on her shoulder and was peering at her dubiously. "You look like you just remembered you left the gas on." She shook her head abruptly.

"Sorry, nothing. I just got this horrible daydream for a minute. Don't talk about dragons, will you? Had enough of that in "Harry Potter". Come on, I'm going to be late."

* 

Had Doctor John Smith, Fellow of St Oscar's College, Oxford, been aware of how anxious Gwen was to avoid being late to his tutorial, he might conceivably have taken more determined measures to alert her, and the rest of the group, of his rather sudden change of plans than a simple note pinned to his door reading:

_ Dear Yr 2 students,  
popped out to slay (save?) dragons-  
tute postponed till next week,  
Yours,  
(An illegible scribbled signature) _

Doctor Smith had, in all fairness, only changed his plans a bare two hours before Gwen Mifhaise had set out to the coach station to meet her brother, and given that in that time he had succeeded in driving from central Oxford to Poole, he could not really be said to be making poor use of his time. Now though, he could see something ahead which was almost certainly bound to delay and frustrate him: a uniform. He sighed, dredging up memories of his exile on Earth all those years ago. He'd dealt with the police cars that had objected to his rather incredible speed by the simple expedient of going faster- by the time his battered old canary yellow vintage car had broken the speed of sound, he'd managed to evade any car on the ground and thoroughly bewilder any effort to track him by helicopter. If they were any use at all, they'd track him down eventually, but by that time he would, ideally, have the protection of UNIT. He didn't much care for being part of an organisation, but using officialdom against itself- that had a certain appeal. Still, to use UNIT one first had to contact UNIT, and that meant tiresome explanations. He eyed the approaching soldier resignedly. 

"I'm sorry sir, this is a restricted area... authorised personnel only." The soldier had had a hard day. There always were some unauthorised members of the press trying to sneak through- not that this man's car could exactly be accused of sneaking. He looked at the paintwork with some revulsion. The driver, a youngish, stocky looking man with untidy dark hair and a short beard, regarded him with a scowl, and then smiled in an untrustworthy sort of way. 

"This is where I catch the ferry for the Channel Islands, isn't it?" The soldier nodded. 

"There's a perfectly good Seacat terminal just down the road, sir. This is a military installation." The man in the car nodded.

"Yes, I am aware of that as it happens. Visit the dragon tours, is it? I thought I might be of some help." 

"We have all the help we need, sir, thank you very-" The man in the car cut him off with an imperious wave of the hand. 

"Nonsense. You've got a collection of half-witted scientists who can't tell their DNA from their sandwiches and a gang of military buffoons who'll shoot at anything that moves... and probably miss that as well." The soldier felt his patience beginning to wear a bit thin.

"Sir, you know I can't let you in."

"Of course you can. It's incredibly simple. You lift this barrier, then stand to one side. I'll do the rest."

"All right then sir, you know I'm not going to let you in!" The man in the car wagged a finger.

"Temper temper. As a matter of fact I don't know anything of the sort. I know that you will obey me." A pause. He scowled, then muttered something to himself.

"What was that, sir?" The soldier's temper was well and truly frayed now. The man glanced back up at him.

"I was just wondering why that trick never works properly for me. Anyway, I suggest that you give this..." he handed over a piece of notepaper, with a few words and numbers scribbled on it, "... to your Port Commanding Officer and tell him or her, if they have any further doubts, to telephone Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart and ask him if that Arcturan hydro-reactor I gave him for the lawnmower is still working." The man sat back in the car with a smug grin on his face. "You know," he remarked to the soldier with some surprise, "I think I might actually be going to enjoy doing this sort of thing again."

**To be continued...**


	2. Chapter Two: A Chance of Remeeting Old F...

Chapter 2: _A chance of re-meeting old friends_

Captain Viner had heard many strange rumours about UNIT during his still brief career in the European Rapid Reaction (Special Defence) Force, and he had heard quite a lot about its Sector Two Commanding Officer, Brigadier Winifred Bambera from his own CO, Brigadier Martin Jones. Rumour had it that 'The Brig'- Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, the Prime Minister's Special Advisor on Extra-terrestrial Counter Intrusion Measures, had once asked concerning her: "Good man, is he?" Viner was unlikely to make such a faux pas, but none the less his first sight of the current head of UNIT's most active brigade was one which surprised him. For one thing, he'd expected her to be surrounded by crowds of the fly-like journalists- those few that had been allowed on to the ferry, who were now getting thoroughly underfoot in their efforts to make good on their advantage. Still, in the midst of the hubbub of the ship's lounge Bambera sat quietly, one hand turning the pages of the Times, laid out on the table in front of her, the other idly toying with a heavy sword. It was this latter which appeared to be keeping the journalists at a respectful distance Viner approached her, and came to attention with a salute. The Brigadier glanced up, questioningly. 

"Captain Peter Viner, EU Special Defence Force Liason, sir." She nodded. 

"Sir, Captain." He sank into the chair opposite her own. He looked at the sword. It looked like an ordinary broadsword, but Bambera was moving it through the air one-handedly without any apparent difficulty, and more to the point a thin red laser guidance beam was flashing from the point, tracing an arc through the air- the arc the swordtip would follow to strike its intended target.

"A laser-guided sword... very esoteric." He looked at her. "One of your toys from the Glasshouse?" Bambera's face twitched. Viner had noticed that. The Glasshouse- UNIT's supposedly top secret repository of captured or abandoned alien technology was a secret known only to the upper echelons of the Government, UNIT senior officers, the personnel working there, and everyone else who had read any of the many huge tabloid exposes on the subject over the years. It was said that there were even postcards featuring photographs from the UFO hangar on sale in the nearby village's shop. None the less, mention the word 'glasshouse' in public near a UNIT officer, and they'd invariably jump.

Bambera shook her head. 

"It was a wedding present." Viner decided not to follow that line of questioning any further. The ferry had been underway for over two hours now, after a short delay at Poole, caused by the late arrival of some scientist or other, and the Captain was finding the journey rather tiresome.

"So, I gather UNIT didn't do too well at keeping a lid on this business?" 

Bambera scowled. 

"Apparently one of the men who found the creatures telephoned people across two continents, contacted every newspaper he could think of with the story, and called up just about very UFO-watch society across England and France." She swore. "Not to mention putting big photos of the things out on the internet. We've managed to kill that site for now, but if we have to go containment on this we're in real trouble."

"Well, from what I understand neither of them have ever signed the Official Secrets Act, so there's not much you can do to them." 

Bambera grimaced. 

"God save us from irresponsible civilians." She was still seething over Mr de Gris-nez' e-mail. He had, apparently upon the wishes of his friend, the reverend Joseph Andwell, alerted as many people outside the military as possible to the existence of the 'dragons', just so that "You people won't be able to hide anything from us if you decide to slaughter them." She wondered if Mr de Gris-nez would have appreciated it if she'd let him hear the Cybermen's side of the story after the '86 incursion. She would be quite willing, at the moment, to load him on to the next space shuttle and send him out to wherever the Cybermen were lurking these days and let them explain the situation to him.

"He does have a point." A man in a blue suit and dark trenchcoat leant over her shoulder, reading the print out with some amusement. "I'm afraid UNIT does have a bit of a reputation for the genocide of anything green." Bambera looked up at him sharply. 

"And you are?" The man hesitated a moment, then darted one hand forward. Somehow she found him to be holding her sword in one hand, and shaking hands with him with the hand that had been holding her sword a second ago. 

"Charles Mortimer." The name rattled off his tongue, and - without invitation- he threw himself back into the seat between her and the tall, fair haired captain. 

"Mortimer..." she thought a moment. "You're the one who turned up late, aren't you? My duty officer at the dock held up the launch. He said you had priority clearance from the Space Defence Department," - she shot an accusing look at Captain Viner- "and Sir Alastair had told him to hold the ship for you." Mortimer nodded. 

"And what is your field of expertise, exactly?" He smiled, leaning back and rubbing his index finger on what looked like a bullet scar on one temple. The stocky man pushed back his untidy mop of brown hair and peered at her for a moment from under impossibly bushy eyebrows which seemed to meet in the middle. 

"I'm interested in things." Mortimer turned to Viner. "You, for instance," he thought a moment. "Captain Peter Viner. I've seen several of your troops about the place amongst the usual UNIT clutter. ESDF, is that right?" He shook his head. "It doesn't scan as well."

Viner nodded. "We're the Space Defence division of the EU Rapid Reaction Force. When we're fully operational we'll be taking over some of UNIT's duties in the EU states." Mortimer sighed, interrupting.

"Two of them... I didn't know when I was well off." Brigadier Bambera gave him a strange look then, a sort of horrified almost recognition. Mortimer went on. 

"So you'll have seen UNIT's files..." he mused. "Tell me what you think?" Viner glanced at Bambera. He didn't know anything about the man, and he seemed to be making spying into an art form. Bambera had folded her arms, and was staring at Dr Mortimer rather nervously. She caught Viner's eye and nodded, almost in resignation. He shrugged. 

"Well, I suppose equal parts horror, delight and disbelief. You feel like your life's suddenly became a game of Space Invaders." He thought a moment. "There's still some things in there I find it hard to swallow, even now. This business with the 'Doctor', for one. Apparently back in the seventies the Brig used to have an alien working on his science staff." He laughed. "Like that 'Slimer' character in "The Real Ghostbusters", I suppose." Mortimer spluttered, his thick eyebrows raising and his eyeballs bulging forwards. 

"That's interesting," the man remarked, interlacing his fingers. "By the way, is it true what I've always heard about your ancestors picking fleas off each other as a greeting, human?" Bambera's groan was audible. Mortimer turned to her, taking a much creased grey trilby hat that appeared to have been used for origami experiments at some time in the past from his pocket and setting it on his head for the sole purpose of doffing it respectfully to her.

"Winifred, how wonderful to see you again." 

* 

Mike watched the approaching ferry through a pair of binoculars he'd borrowed from the UNIT sentry. He supposed they were under house arrest- well, in face more under island arrest, the entire island community cut off from the outside world and urged to stay indoors as much as possible. As one of two human/dragon liason officers, he and Andwell had been granted a bit more freedom, mainly because he'd suggested that their currently placid discovery might well consider roasting every soldier on the island if they were locked up. About forty-five minutes away. It was time to go and talk to the dragons. 

He handed the binoculars back to the sentry and headed up the harbour road. The whole idea of talking with the beasts at all was something he could only accept by promising his brain that he'd make time for culture shock later. When he'd faced the creature on the cliff edge the night before last terror and disbelief had paralysed him, he'd stared the creature in the eye and waited for death. All that had happened was that the dragon had said 'hello'. 

He hadn't understood it at first, hadn't recognised the word spoken in the dragon's great rumbling voice, so after a moment, her voice piqued with a slight confusion, the massive beast had spoken again. 

"Hello." Her long neck had wavered and her head turned towards Andwell. "I am saying it proper?" 

"Properly," the vicar had noted. 

"Properly," she had repeated. He had nodded. Finally, Mike had spoken. 

"You can... you can speak our language?" 

"I taught it to them. They can learn incredibly quickly." The vicar had sounded proud. 

"Where do they come from?" Mike had addressed Andwell, but it was the dragon who had answered. 

"We do not know." 

* 

"No information about their origins at all?" The Doctor was poring over the reports from Herm. 

"None that they're willing to tell us, anyway," Bambera confirmed. "When we arrive I may just have to be a bit more persuasive." The Doctor looked up, and suddenly all hint of foolishness was gone from his eyes. She'd seen a few photographs of the Master, the Doctor's old nemesis, taken during their feud during the seventies. She'd often wondered at the difference between them, the cold magnetic power of one and the warm, self deprecating humour in the eyes of the other. Now though, in the Doctor's face there was no warmth, only an impersonal, almost uncontestable force of will. 

"You will do nothing of the kind." A slight bitterness crept into his voice, and his eyes became shadowed. "I will not have it fall apart again." He flung himself back in the chair and shot her a wide grin. "But you were only speaking hypothetically, weren't you." The Doctor, what she thought of the Doctor, was back, even if he had changed so much. "Now then..." he examined a photograph of the dragon. "You say these creatures can speak?" Bambera nodded. The Doctor peered more closely at the photograph and frowned, shaking his head. 

"What is it?" Viner took a similar photograph of the creature and studied it. The Doctor pointed at the dragon's mouth. 

"Your average household pet can understand some of the more basic concepts and phonemes of English, even aside from tonal recognition" the Doctor claimed, "and would probably do more if you lavished the same level of training on it as you do your own race, but you'd be waiting a million years for your cat to answer you in English. Concepts don't equate across species' languages, and even given that it's not difficult for an advanced race to learn to translate them- your people do it all the time, these creatures have the same physical problem..." He flexed his jaw and lips, rolling them back and twisting them back and forth. "They can't do this. A cat is simply physically incapable of vocalising a properly formed labial consonant, and so are these 'dragons'."

Viner shook his head.

"You're assuming they formulate sounds the same way we do." he replied. The Doctor gave him a surprised look. 

"That's good thinking." He scratched his nose. "But there's still the problem of origin. There's no creature even remotely resembling them anywhere in your galaxy or, to the best of my knowledge in the surrounding Local Group... if these things are extra-terrestrial they'd have had to have broken Durantho's Limit to get here in this time-frame."

"Durantho's Limit?" Viner asked. Bambera looked at him warningly. She'd learned from bitter experience that asking for explanations from the Doctor normally left you more confused than you were to start with. The Doctor grunted, tapping a pen against his lips. 

"Speed of light for the ambitious. Hyperspace reduces distance by a vast degree, but you're still anchored in space- time. Equally there's a limit upon how tightly you can curve space in wormhole or space warp travel. Travel still takes time. Durantho's limit is the distance which, if you'd exceeded it would mean that, in the time-frame you currently occupy, if you've reached the destination, you would have had to have started your journey before the universe began." He sighed. "Only someone with a space-time craft could have breached it, and the boundary limitations on ours, and the Daleks' too, as far as I'm aware, are rather less than Durantho's limit in space anyway... no, I don't believe those creatures are extra- terrestrial.."

Bambera looked at the photographs. 

"I'd thought they might be Skarasen." The Doctor laughed.

"Skarasen? Flying Skarasen?" He shook his head. "You helped deal with that nest in the Australian Outback, didn't you? To get a Skarasen calf into the air you'd need a very, very large catapult." He paused. "Trust me, I know."

"So you're suggesting that they've always been here?" Bambera looked sceptical. "Creatures in deep hibernation, like the Silurians?" She checked her manifest. "If there's a Silurian nest here I might have to call for reinforcements." The Doctor's eyes blazed. He murmured something. "What was that, Doctor?"

"If that did happen to be the explanation, Brigadier, which, incidentally, I rather doubt, then you should probably know that I will not help you, and indeed will do everything in my power to thwart any offensive military action you take." He looked at her challengingly. "I hope I make myself clear. In that particular squabble, I'm neutral."

Bambera stared at him coolly for a moment. "In the end," she said calmly, "you might find you have as much a stake in the human race and our world as any of the rest of us."

Viner coughed, to break the silence. "It's possible they could be unconnected with the Silurians, isn't it? I mean, some other race or other that just went to sleep...?" The Doctor beamed at him, all darkness washed from his face in an instant. Viner found it hard to keep pace with the man. He seemed to fly from the borders of rage to a childish glee in seconds. It did not indicate a stable mind.

"They went to sleep many years ago..." The Doctor smiled at some private joke. "It's certainly one hypothesis. My main problem with it is that..." He stopped, as a klaxon sounded two short blasts and the PA came on. A voice, muffled and distorted, crackled over the tannoy.

"Would Brigadier Bambera and Captain Viner report to the Bridge immediately, please. Brigadier Bambera and Captain Viner to the Bridge." The voice sounded nervous, almost in shock. The two soldiers exchanged glances and stood up, eliciting great interest amongst the scientists and pressmen. The Doctor carefully returned his pen to his breast pocket and rose to his feet, quietly following the pack of journalists that had formed around the Brigadier as she walked towards the exit.

"And then woke up with a brand new... what?" he asked himself, quietly. 

* 

"Oh bloody hell!" Gwen tore the note from Dr Smith's door and screwed it up. "Thanks for letting me know." 

"Is there a problem?" She turned quickly- guiltily at being caught in such a childish temper tantrum. Philip lounged on the stairs behind her.

"I thought I left you up in my room to get changed for the banquet tonight?" He nodded, indicating his somewhat crushed suit. 

"And so I have." 

"That was quick... and how'd you find me, anyway?" He laughed.

"You pointed out the staircase on our way in." She relaxed. Philip had always found it easy to unsettle people, never being quite where you expected him to be in a room, moving quietly from one place to another when you turned your back for a second, picking up on things you'd forgotten you'd told him and then surprising you with his own knowledge. He took the note from her, smoothed it out and read it, a smile pulling up one side of his mouth.

"Slay or save... that's our hero all right." He relaxed, and grinned at Gwen, suddenly seeming her junior. "So that's the great doctor's study is it?" he asked, jabbing a thumb at the door. Gwen nodded.

"I wish you could see some of the things he's got in there, actually. All sorts of junk he's collected over the years." 

"Oh yes?" He looked curiously at his sister. "Anything in particular?" 

"Well, there's some bits he says are part of a broken Cray- you know, the supercomputers?" Philip nodded, and she continued. "And this collection of odd keys... and especially that telephone box- the Police Box I told you about." 

"Ah yes." Philip's eyes were not like hers. Even when they'd been young, those pale grey eyes had set him apart. A small part of her mind questioned the eagerness she felt to show him the room, but the larger part dismissed it. Dr Smith was an eccentric, and her brother was always interested in the unusual. Idly, she scratched at something itching on the back of her hand. 

The itching spread _to her face. Small, hard, chitinous silverfish crawled out on to her face from inside her tear ducts and she let out a choked sob of disgust, flinging her hands to her eyes and then drawing them down again to look on her work. Her brother leant over her shoulder. He shook his head. "No, that's wrong." He pointed at the error. "Things would flow much better if the door was unlocked." She looked at the offending passage and nodded, taking a rubber to what she had already written and adjusting it. As she wrote, tiny hands reached round from the pages of the future and doodled little pen- and-ink dragons in the margins of the present day. _

Gwen rubbed at her eyes. Philip was watching her curiously. 

"Are you all right?" 

She shook her head. "Another one of those flashes... I'll be fine. I'm probably just coming down with a cold or something. She felt a moment's dizziness and leant on the door to keep her balance. The latch slipped and she fell into the room. 

Philip dashed in after her. She'd fallen to her knees, but beyond a worrying lightheadedness, felt fine. He helped her to her feet. She felt her face flame with embarrassment. All right, it was mostly Dr Smith's fault for not locking his door properly, but even so, breaking into a tutor's room like that... 

"Come on, we've got to get out of here." Philip looked around, then grinned at her. 

"Well, you said you'd like to show me the Police Box." He pointed. The box stood in one corner of Dr Smith's study, like an ersatz cupboard. The first time Gwen had seen it, she'd had to ask what it was. The lettering above the doorway and round the other three sides had been almost erased by the same fire that had blackened the rest of the shell, the roof was splintered, and the light on top that would have guided one to it in the darkness was smashed. One door was missing, the interior a dull cavern that seemed almost to repel light, the other unmarked and clean, and obviously far newer than the rest of the box. Gwen nodded. 

"I think he's restoring it or something. He's put that door on since I started having tutorials with him. Never see any sort of DIY stuff lying around though. Philip ran his hand down the blistered paintwork at one corner. 

"I don't think you repair one of these in quite that way..." he murmured. "It's more a question of feeding it power and teaching it to repair itself." 

Gwen shook her head. They couldn't just stand around here poking through Dr Smith's things. If one of the porters came up... Philip was peering into the gloom. "What does he keep in here?"

"I... I don't know. He's never let me have a look inside. Nothing, I shouldn't think, if he is restoring it." The man shook his head, a smug smile on his features. 

"Oh no, there's something behind the door." He beckoned, and despite herself Gwen found herself walking over to join him. "And what?" he continued. "A key. The key to turn all the world." 

* * *

Well, that's got the basics of the characters established, I hope, after the set-up of chapter one. I'd be especially intrigued to hear comments on the new 'Ninth' Doctor. Yes, I'm deliberately making him as smug and arrogant as the character envelope allows... 


	3. Chapter Three: First Contact

Chapter 3: _First Contact_

The beast stooped through the air towards them, smoke trailing from its beak, the sun sparkling on iridescent feather and scale. Closer the boat came, closer, the tiny running figures on its deck in ever sharper relief. The dragon saw one of them, a dark skinned female, point a short stick up towards him, saw a male in a long coat knock it away with a snarl of anger. The dragon drew closer, plunging towards the deck, saw fear glint in the eyes of all but one of the men and women beneath and then spread his wings, sweeping over them in glory and up, up into the heights once more. Faster now, fighting his weight instead of falling with it. Dheranaunda was his name, or, at least Dheranaunda was how the kind human with the white collar told him should be spelled the sound he most closely associated with the idea of identity. Names were strange to the dragon. Not alien, but something long disused. Dheranaunda had dragged his name up from the depths of his memory, as far back as he could recall. The blood was racing through his skull now as he climbed almost vertically through the skies. He could almost feel the admiration of the people below, fear melting away as they saw that he meant them no harm. He leant back into the skies and tumbled, the ground now above him, but his momentum carrying him forward, describing a great loop in the air as he swept once more back down on the boat. He had felt this joy before. 

* 

Viner watched the dragon's headlong approach with less fear this time. The thing was putting on a show for them. There was still a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach- it is perhaps rather difficult to face an oncoming fire-breathing mythical beast without at least the barest hint of concern, but he was surprised to find it sublimated by a genuine appreciation of the performance. Beside him, the Doctor was grinning openly, and he clapped loudly as the beast flew overhead, standing upright as everyone else threw themselves to the deck. This time the dragon swept away to one side, skimming the waves with one wingtip as it threw itself around its arc.

"Bravo!" the Doctor called, then cast an amused look at a still stony-faced Bambera. "Would you have preferred it to have barbecued you into next week, perhaps?"

Bambera shook her head irritably, her eyes never leaving the dragon, now two thirds round its circle and returning.

"I'd prefer to know what's going on." The Doctor shrugged. 

"I would have thought that was quite obvious. A bit of a display. You're here to welcome these new visitors to planet Earth," he laid a very slight stress on it, "and they're obviously thanking you for your time with a little bit of a flourish." The dragon swept in, its talons dropping to the foredeck and sinking some depth into the vessel. Beside him, Viner thought he heard the ship's captain's teeth grind. The creature furled its wings and the Doctor, seeming quite unafraid, strolled forward, silver-topped walking stick under one arm, clapping and beaming at the creature until he stood beneath its smoking nostrils. The beast was going slightly cross-eyed trying to focus on him. 

"Oh, well done, sir." The Doctor applauded. "First rate performance." Behind, Viner heard a somewhat ragged echo of the applause break out amongst the scientists and journalists who had followed them on deck. He risked a glance at Bambera, but she had folded her arms and appeared to show no intention of clapping. Viner was not technically directly under the Brigadier's command, of course, and privately he suspected that, this being something in the nature of a diplomatic contact, they should show some appreciation, but he wasn't about to start ESDF's first formal field work by undermining UNIT authority. 

The Doctor doffed his hat to the creature. 

"Doctor..." he thought for a moment, "Doctor Herbert Wells, at your service." There was a pause. Then, in a low rumbling voice that seemed to shake the hull, the dragon replied. 

"Dheranaunda, at yours." The Doctor blinked. The creature paused again, then added. "And if that's your real name I'm Smaug the Tremendous."

Viner and Bambera exchanged glances. The Brigadier moved forward, keeping her gun visible, but distinctly lowered. Not that, Captain Viner reflected, it would probably be much good anyway. A couple of UNIT troops formed a rough semi-circle behind her. Viner nodded to two ESDF marksmen standing on a railed catwalk above them. Stay alert, but don't do anything provocative. If such basic sign-language could have borne a subtext, then it might have been- Don't mess this up, let's leave that to UNIT if anyone. 

The Doctor was leaning casually on his stick, part turned so as to still address the dragon- Dheranaunda- but also to keep a wary eye on the advancing UNIT men. It was almost, Viner reflected, as if they were the untrustworthy aliens he was afraid of.

"So," he remarked to the dragon, "You've had time to lap up a bit of local culture then?" The dragon nodded its huge head. 

"Reverend Andwell has a very large library," it explained. "We do find your literature fascinating...." the creature expelled a small gout of flame in something of a sigh, which singed the deck. "Although I really wish you didn't use carbon to record things on." The Doctor raised his eyebrows, then laughed. Suddenly he whirled round to face the approaching Brigadier.

"Ah, Winifred, please join us." He gave a friendly smile, which held as he dropped his gaze to her gun. Bambera met the look challengingly, and for a moment his smile broadened. Unseen by the dragon behind him, the Doctor dipped into his coat pocket and brought out the magazine he'd removed from Bambera's pistol. He winked at the Brigadier, then spun round to face Dheranaunda once again. 

"Dheranaunda, allow me to present Brigadier Winifred Bambera, of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, head of the... welcoming committee." He raised his head. "As a gesture of trust and friendship, Brigadier Bambera has removed the armaments from her weapon and placed them in my care. He held out his right hand, the one holding the pistol magazine and, with the smuggest look possible on the back of his head, let it drop over the side into the sea. The dragon's neck unfurled slightly, and its head moved over above the Doctor to look down upon Bambera. 

"A wonderful gesture of friendship," it noted, and Bambera fancied she caught something ironic and mocking even in its booming voice. A massive claw indicated Dheranaunda's throat. "I apologise that I am not really capable of responding in kind. However, the thought is there." 

"On behalf of the peoples of the Earth, I greet you, Dheranaunda." The UN had spent months agreeing upon the First Contact address to be used at a peaceful encounter with an extra- terrestrial- or whatever, she reminded herself, entity. She hesitated, casting a glance round at the eager journalists. This was not an ideal arrangement. Finally she looked up at the dragon. "Are you the leader of your kind." 

The dragon pondered this, sucking in its cheeks. 

"I'm the first one on this boat, if that's what you mean." The Doctor smiled. 

"I think what Winifred means is... the head of your pack, the one who makes decisions which affect the whole group...?" He gave Dheranaunda an encouraging grin. The dragon exhaled a plume of smoke. 

"Oh, I've read of the concept, but it doesn't really apply to us, does it? There's only two of us here." An excited quiver ran through the UNIT men. No one had been looking forward to fighting hordes of dragons, if things got ugly. The Doctor nodded, and stroked his beard. 

"Only two... well, I wouldn't advise you to discuss that sort of thing in front of these people," he gestured to the Brigadier. "Not until you're entirely certain you can trust them, anyway." Bambera seized him by one arm and drew him aside. 

"I'd like to ask what the hell you think you're doing! You're supposed to be on our side, remember?" The Doctor gave her a fatuous smile, then dropped his gaze pointedly to her hand on his arm, until she released him. Then he rolled his eyes up to look at the face of the dragon, still peering down, somewhat curiously, upon them from overhead. 

"Pas devant les dragons, ma chere general de brigade." He walked round to behind Dheranaunda's shoulder and looked up at the creature. "Could you perhaps give me a lift, hmm?" The dragon seemed pleased. 

"You want to fly?" The beast sloped one of its forelimbs to allow the Doctor to scramble up. Rolling its eyes to watch his ascent, the dragon advised: "Sit in front of my shoulder blades, just at the base of the neck." It wriggled slightly as the Doctor settled into place. "That tickles," Dheranaunda commented. "All right, where to?" The Doctor laughed. 

"Dragon Island, of course. I'd like to talk to your colleague." Bambera glared up at him. The man was breaking every regulation, every procedure, even a few he'd personally had Lethbridge-Stewart add to the rulebook, and he just didn't care. As the dragon turned, its tail sending a couple of inquisitive biologists fleeing for cover as it moved round, and flexed its wings ready for flight, she caught the Doctor's eye, and heard him murmur to the dragon. "Hi-ho silver, away!" 

"Oh shame." 

* 

**from**: winifrid.bambera@unitednations/uk.mil  
**to**: trapone.unit@unitednations/uk.mil  
**cc**: alastair.lethbridge-stewart@spacedefence.ministry.org  
**subject**: Field Mission 336/01:blue box class situation

The man Sir Alastair sent has confirmed his identity as 'the Doctor', and I must tell you, he seems to be the most annoying one yet. He's not fully on side, and I do not entirely trust him. Brig, you've had plenty of experience of the Doctor's double bluffs- any pointers as to when he's only pretending to change sides? At present he has gone off with our first dragon- named 'Dheranaunda', which seems to be a literate creature, capable of speech. Creature claims that there are only two of its kind present. We are investigating further. Shortly to arrive on island. Please advise me asap of any related incidents on worldwide scale. I hope to avoid killing our scientific advisor. 

Brigadier Bambera. 

* 

Dheranaunda leant forward into the wind, carefully adjusting his balance to compensate for the extra weight of the being on his back. His mate had flown the human with the white collar between their little islet and Herm several times over the last few days, and he had often wondered how it would feel, to have such power and control over another. Now he knew. There was something special in it, true, a pleasing generosity in affording the skies to one normally bound to earth, but mainly it just created an uncomfortable itch between the shoulders. 

He rolled one eye back to consider the Doctor, who was gripping the dragon's scaled back with his legs, his arms gripping his lapels, seemingly confident in the flight of the dragon, and grinning broadly. 

"Tell me," Dheranaunda rumbled, "Your 'Brigadier Bambera' had no idea that you'd taken that thing from her weapon-stick, had she?" The Doctor's face fell slightly, and he jerked his head forward once, in a gesture the dragon had come to learn meant assent. "Then why did you do it to her?" The Doctor squirmed again.

"For the same reason just over half the U.S.A.'s nuclear warheads actually only contain mildly radioactive sawdust," I suppose, he shouted over the wind, "I don't like weapons in the wrong hands."

"And what are the right hands?" asked the dragon, banking into a steep curve. The islet was below them now, a small, lightly wooded egg-shape, the dragons' nest a shallow bowl in the rock, some seventy metres across, white-collar and long-nose had told him. The Doctor said nothing, but Dheranaunda thought he glimpsed the creature casting a glance down at his own hands for a moment. The dragon sighed. "Well, in any event it was most amusing, Doctor." The man looked up at that, his face for a moment shocked, as if by some sudden thought. 

"Yes, I thought you found it funny... and so did Captain Viner, for all he tried not to show it." The Doctor rubbed his chin with one hand, the other gripping the dragon's neck as their descent grew more rapid. "Interesting really, considering that I didn't..."

* 

Captain Viner had his troops fall in behind the UNIT force, although he himself walked side by side with Bambera. The two men standing on the quay watched their approach silently. Reverend Joseph Andwell, of St Paul's Church, and Michael de Gris- nez, of French ancestry but raised on the island, apparently some not-terribly successful private detective over in Northern France. It was fairly easy to tell the two apart. Andwell, the balding, white haired little man was almost a caricature of a man of the cloth, and the detective, long pointed nose quivering, long, lank hair hanging over a thin face, had, as the CO of the first UNIT troops to arrive had described him, more than a little of the rat about his appearance. Andwell had been the one to find the creatures and, rather than immediately contacting a legitimate government agency, had chosen to call on his friend, who he'd hoped would be able to wreck any UNIT attempts to keep the affair under wraps- thereby ensuring that UNIT couldn't simply slaughter the dragons and then pretend they had never existed. Viner, knowing something of UNIT's past operations, felt a certain sympathy with this view. He wondered if Andwell had ever heard the word 'Silurian'. 

The Brigadier stopped in front of Mr de Gris-nez. 

"Michael de Gris-nez?" he nodded. "Brigadier Winifred Bambera of the United Nations Intelligence Taskfore. We've just been introduced to your dragons."

De Gris-nez nodded again. "I thought we could give the journalists something to look at," he smiled. "You see, they're quite peaceful."

Viner felt, privately, that he'd like a little more time to be convinced of that- _and so would you, unless I'm much mistaken_, he thought, watching De Gris-nez carefully. 

* 

_Fire and ice. Earth and air. A moment of being where before there had been none. Consciousness without memory. Blankness and terrible uncomprehending conclusion. Flailing back and forth, heat boiling up from within, and then something alike, another, the same and yet different._

"Your mate?" the Doctor hazarded. 

_ Then instinct takes over, rushing in. The sense of self, of place, of time and being tumble in upon me. _

"I see..." The Doctor sat down on the rim of the nest and took an old sketchbook from his pocket. "Even now you have no recollection of any events prior to this?"

"Even now," Dheranaunda confirmed. "It was on the second night that the white-collared... that Reverend Andwell met Chyrista as she fed."

"Fed?" The man studied the dragon's face, his pencil moving busily on the page. "Yes... and what exactly do you eat, again?" 

A hollow booming noise came from the dragon's chest. "Why, sacrificial virgins of course! Preferably with long blonde tresses and..."

"Yes, very amusing," the Doctor snapped. Dheranaunda wavered, and the man continued more kindly. "You don't have any memory of who you are or where you came from... knowing your diet might help me to pin your species down."

"Fish. Just fish and the occasional bit of waterweed."

"And why do you need to breathe fire to accomplish that?" Dheranaunda subsided in puzzlement. The Doctor glanced quickly between the dragon and his sketch for comparison, and then, seemingly having absorbed a mental picture of the creature, concentrated solely on his sketchpad. 

"You're quite a mystery, you know that, don't you?" A broad sweep across the paper, then some fine, detailed etching of scales. "A breeding pair with no past, ridiculous biology and what seems very like a human-based personality profile suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Hibernation? That might have damaged your memories, but there's no sign of any equipment here, and no one who's visited this island in the past has mentioned a nest of sleeping dragon." He looked up at the creature again. "Any theories?"

Dheranaunda turned slowly in the great bowl. "Perhaps we were simply... created. A new species for this world." The Doctor snorted.

"New life-forms develop a bit more complicatedly than that!" 

"Reverend Andwell believes that God created the world in seven days.... perhaps He created us a bit later." The Doctor raised an eyebrow quizzically, and returned to his sketch. 

"Well, it's possible, isn't it? Do you believe in God, Doctor?" The Doctor put down his pencil and cast a reflective glance up towards the sun. 

"Sometimes, Dheranaunda, I don't believe in anyone at all. What we know about the world is very imperfect, and all our 'facts' and 'theories' and notions are just attempts to extrapolate some sort of sense from the seeming chaos which surrounds us. If great big fire breathing dragons really can just pop into existence like flying sperm whales... then I suppose we'll just have to accept that as one of the weirder laws of physics, but," he amended, turning his gaze back on the dragon. "Not before applying Occam's razor to see if we can't find a simpler explanation."

* 

Mike took in the night air. It was a cool, calm evening, a world away from the wind and rain of two nights ago. The various groups of soldiers had pitched their tents on the green, the scientists and journalists, after a happy day spent poking and interrogating Chyrista had all retired to their billets, and Andwell had sent the female dragon back to the island, with instructions to send Dheranaunda across with one of the UNIT scientists, who had apparently caught a lift with him to the island from the boat. He thought he could hear the wingbeats of one of the creatures in the distance. Dheranaunda, probably- he seemed to have the less self-assured rhythm of the two. It rather shocked Mike how easily and quickly he'd grown accustomed to the two, learned to tell them apart. Mind you, over the last two days since he had met them he'd practically eaten, breathed and drunk dragon. He had insisted that they make formal contact with UNIT- an organisation he'd only read about in tabloid newspapers, rather than just letting them find out through the press, as Joseph had wanted. There was no need to antagonise the military unduly, although he'd agreed with the older man that getting the information out into the public domain first was definitely a good thing. They'd been right there- almost the first thing Bambera had done after disembarking was to have them, practically at gunpoint, sign the Official Secrets Act, much to the obvious disappointment of a number of the reporters. Yes, there was the dragon, flying against the moon, a small jet of flame billowing from its mouth, perhaps lighting the way, a tiny human silhouette on its back, coming nearer and nearer. Mike fought down the involuntary tingling of fear as the dragon approached. They were peaceful, fascinating, eager to learn and help, neither of them had ever shown any aggressive tendency. _So why am I still afraid?_ He asked himself.

When the dragon landed the man slithered down from its back and turned to say something to it. Dheranaunda nodded in an oddly human manner, greeted Mike, then flapped huge wings and soared away into the night, leaving the man- a dark haired figure in a long coat- gazing up after him.

"What a wonderful way to travel." He looked round suddenly, and blinked, his eyes seeming to have moderate difficulty in focussing on Mike's face. Finally he laughed.

"Um... you must be Dr Smith?" Mike hazarded. "I'm..."

"Mike de Gris-nez, yes, I do know." Dr Smith looked searchingly at him for a moment. "I wondered when we would meet. You must age quite a bit over the next few years." Bambera had warned him the Doctor could be a little strange. Mike nodded, for want of any more appropriate way of acknowledging the strange comment, and turned, heading back towards the vicarage. 

"The Brigadier and Captain Viner are staying here... she asked if Joe could put you up as well, but I'm afraid he's out of bedrooms now, so you'll be stuck on the living room couch."

"That will be quite sufficient, I think." He laughed. "She wants to keep a close eye on me. Very wise." 

* 

"So you're saying the dragons don't know where they come from at all?" Bambera looked sceptical. The Doctor shook his head. He'd kicked off his shoes, hung his coat and jacket on the hooks in the hall, and placed his tie in his pocket before reclining on the couch in the low ceilinged oak beamed living room of the old vicarage, a blanket the same grey as the curtains drawn up over him.

"That's what they claim, just as your information said." 

"So basically you've spent the day verifying what my sources already knew." She paced the room irritably. "Not to mention doing your level best to make me look a fool." 

"Winifred Winifred Winifred," he stretched out an arm to take a chocolate biscuit from the coffee table on the hearthrug. "You and the good captain here can be our eyes in the human camp. You're human, you've already got a head start on it... but we won't learn anything about these creatures unless we gain their confidence, will we? Hmm?" He ate the biscuit. Bambera shot a glance at Viner, leaning on the old fireplace toying with various ornaments. The first thing the Doctor had done on entering the house had been to apologise profusely for his behaviour earlier in the day. The second had been to outline his 'instructions' for how Bambera was to proceed with her investigation. She was beginning to lose track of where she was with the man. He swallowed, then continued, as if answering her thoughts. "I'm neutral in this affair, Brigadier. The dragons say they don't mean any harm, and I believe them. Of course," his voice changed, "whether harm will come of it is a different matter, but my main aim in that regard is to ensure that the two of you negotiate in a sensible and fair manner. I'm rather more interested in the how and why...." 

Viner shrugged. 

"Reverend Andwell thinks they're some sort of miracle. Spontaneously created." The Doctor nodded. 

"Yes, and that's the most convincing explanation the dragons have heard as well... they've certainly never been seen before." 

"Surely that's impossible." Bambera sat opposite the Doctor. "If they're not from outer space... couldn't they have come from some parallel dimension? I mean, if King Arthur came from one, why not legends of dragons from another?" The Doctor beamed at her.

"Very good thinking, Brigadier. Yes, that's what I'm inclined to believe at present... although it doesn't clear up a number of anomalies."

"Such as?"

He sat up. "Such as the name of the place, for one thing. Look at your maps. 'Dragon Island.' It's on all the charts... those that are detailed enough to show it, but there are no legends of dragons associated with this part of the world, the island itself looks nothing like a dragon, and yet it's had that name since time immemorial, according to Mike, and no one has set foot on it for centuries." He slapped the side of his head with a palm, his eyes suddenly widening. "I've a horrible feeling I'm being quite spectacularly stupid." 

"So..." Viner continued. "They were in hibernation then... there were legends, long, long ago, but they've just been forgotten... at the conscious level, any how." The Brigadier shook her head. 

"People would have seen something." 

"That 'nest''s very recent... if they were hidden from the air, and people say no one's actually landed their for centuries, then..."

"P and not P," the Doctor interrupted, "a logical paradox... and I have the horrible feeling the universe can't quite make up its mind. Good night." He swung his legs back up on to the couch and turned his face from the room. Bambera stared at him for a moment, and was about to say something when the Time Lord began to snore.

"Oh shame." She looked at Viner. "We won't get anything more out of him tonight. I suggest we turn in and make an early start tomorrow."

Later that night, the Doctor dreamed of fire. 


	4. Chapter Four: Shadows

Chapter 4:_Shadows_

Philip lit a match and held it up, moving it gently around the cavernous space. The room was like some vast cathedral of gothic arches and victorian girders, its altar a great ruined mound of electronics and crystal. The ceiling was lost in the night: no matter how high he held the match he could see nothing but shadows. The guttering flame touched his fingers and he dropped it with a curse, but he had seen his immediate target- a big arc light, probably purloined from some roadworks gang, set up to one side of the central table, its beam angled shine upon it. He hurried over, leaving Gwen standing motionless, half enraptured, by the door, and eventually, tripping over discarded components, old coats and what felt and sounded suspiciously like an indignant cat on the way, he found himself by the lamp and lit it, hoping not to find it to be unplugged. A dazzling blast of light flared at the central table and he screwed his eyes tight, turning his head away. 

When he had recovered, Philip studied the table. It had been a hexagonal control console of sorts, with six sloped panels presumably- from what survived and had been reconstructed- bearing the control mechanisms for the machine, grouped around a tall cylindrical glass column, which now rose two feet from the console before ending in a jagged flower of broken glass. Inside the column, a mechanism of interlocking spines and revolving panels remained largely undamaged. Philip nodded, relieved. Of the surrounding panels one, that nearest the doors, seemed to have been ripped out completely and replaced. Switches, heavy levers and even, in one place, a loose connection of two bare live wires tied in a knot and soldered together decorated a panel of as yet unpainted hardboard. Further round the console the navigation computer- if Philip remembered correctly from the directions he'd received- was bereft of its keyboard, the ship's master having screwed a nineteen fifties mechanical typewriter to the console, with sparking contacts linked to each of the keypresses, presumably as a somewhat desperate emergency replacement. He felt a sudden shiver of pain and fear.

"Philip?" Gwen had stumbled against the inner doors of the room- both replaced and a gleaming white in contrast to the dark tomb itself- and was making her way slowly towards the console. "Where are we?" She screwed up her brows and pressed a hand to her forehead. "I keep... I keep blacking out. When did we leave the office... where..." she reached him, and he took her hand, feeling for a pulse at the wrist. Slow but violent. Philip nodded, gently guiding his sister to a high-backed velvet upholstered chair. 

"We're still in Dr Smith's office, Gwen..." he eased her back into the chair, and tilted her face up to look into his own. "It's just we're inside something else as well." Quickly he stood up, and scanned the walls of the chamber. There, to the left of the entrance doors, was the ship's main library. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a memory to reclaim." 

Philip walked quickly across the floor to the shelves, dimly lit by the reflected glow of the arc-light. Behind him, Gwen raised her head. She felt strange, certainly, but she was by no means incapable of thought. Philip- well, Philip could make talking about going shopping sound like he was on the verge of world domination, but even so, she had a very clear sense that her brother was up to something. She cast a quick look around, trying not to attract Philip's attention. Her last clear memory was standing in Dr Smith's room, looking at the phone box. This place... it looked like it could be a cellar in the Bodleian library, maybe, or some deep underground vault in the university. Gwen rose to her feet a little unsteadily. She had a constant feeling of itching all over her body now, but she dared not start to scratch them. Once she started, the creatures burst forth from her flesh, and then she would black out again. Gwen did not know if the silverfish she saw burrowing out of her body and leaving no wound were the cause of her dementia, or merely another symptom of it, but she would not start the movement of that chain of thought, where ever might be its beginning and end.

The young woman approached the control console, catching sight of her reflection in an old, oak framed mirror as she moved. A normal figure, a semi-nocturnal student in jeans and thick woollen jersey of indeterminate colour, her appearance out of place in this great mausoleum, just as this... machine seemed out of place. She reached out a hand towards a large switch, and hesitated.

"I wouldn't." Philip barely looked up from the bookshelves over by the wall. 

* 

"I've got the oddest feeling someone's crawling around between my ears."

Mike shrugged his shoulders. Ahead of him, the Doctor shuddered and drew his coat more tightly about himself. He rearranged a striped university scarf to cover his chin, then, without turning, continued, "Well, come along, young man." Mike de Gris-nez snorted. 'Young man' indeed. This Doctor couldn't be more than five years older than he was, but he acted as if he was some kind of elderly Einstein figure. What was stranger, most of the military seemed to treat him like it. He'd cast all mention of the dragons from the table at dinner, preferring to wrangle over obscure religious and moral problems with Andwell until even the vicar had grown tired of the man's pedantry- although of course he'd been too polite to say so. Then he had retired into the living room with the two army officers and talked until well after the rest of the house- including Mike, whose room was directly over the living room- had gone to bed. Finally they had subsided, and Mike had enjoyed all of three hours peaceful sleep before a persistent knocking on the door had heralded the reawakening of the Doctor's enthusiasm.

"Your name wouldn't be Insomnia, by any chance, would it?" he asked, scrambling over the broken down wall at the back of the vicarage garden. The second time in a week he'd been dragged up this hill by a madman. That was another thing! The name joke. Over dinner, the Doctor had, without seeming to realise it, introduced himself to seven different people using seven different names. On one occasion he'd even used the name of someone he'd been previously introduced to, who was sitting not three places away. Brigadier Bambera had just offered the group an embarrassed smile, and explained to Reverend Andwell that the Doctor was a little eccentric, but a very skilled scientist and negotiator. The man stopped suddenly, and looked round at Mike. 

"Why now?" Mike blinked at him, and the Doctor continued with what he obviously thought was an elaboration. "Dimensional breakthroughs happen of course, but why now as opposed to any other particular time... and why on Earth are they so..." he flapped a hand irritably. 

"Dragonish?" Mike offered, a little sarcastically. To his surprise, the Doctor beamed. 

"Precisely, my boy." He turned, continuing up the path, muttering to himself. "Dragonish... Smaug the Tremendous... Ivor the Engine more likely." 

It was, at least, Mike reflected, a kinder night than his previous trip, and they made quite good time to the Bay. He pointed out towards the island. The red glow was still there, flickering faintly. 

"There you are... does it tell you anything by night that it didn't in daylight?" The Doctor nodded, and his face was suddenly grave. 

"That light tells me something. One of them's on the island... on the nest, in fact. They must be keeping eggs warm... eggs or live young. Things that can survive unaided in the temperatures of the day, but need the heat from an adult's furnace at night." He caught the look on Mike's face and afforded him a quick, bleak grin. "Well, I'm just guessing." He looked out again. "But they've bred, I'm sure of that... and that's something they didn't tell Winifred, isn't it?" 

"They did not tell me either." Mike joined the Doctor on the point. "Do you think like your Brigadier... that they are here to invade us?" The Doctor shook his head. 

"Invade, no..." he turned slowly, heading back towards the vicarage. "But I have a nasty feeling they could be a symptom of someth-" he broke off, eyes widening. Mike followed his gaze. Down in the valley- it was so hard to tell in the dark, but down in the valley where there'd been a little cottage- its owner an elderly fisherman who sometimes wasn't too choosy about whose fish he caught- there was fire, a great blazing fire, and for just one moment Mike thought he caught the silhouette of a wing against the flames. The Doctor released an oath in some harshly accented language and plunged back down the path, his hat falling from his head. 

"Come on!" 

"But what..." Mike stared at him. If the dragons had started this, then calling the Brigadier or Captain Viner, trigger-happy UNIT or no trigger-happy UNIT seemed like the best option. Confronting a homicidal fire-breathing dragon almost the size of an elephant armed only with a walking stick and a pair of aggressive eyebrows was not high on his list of sensible lifestyle choices. 

* 

There was a faint humming sound coming from the depths of the console, Gwen noticed now. It had hovered just on the threshold of hearing, and only passed into her awareness now as its rhythm changed slightly. It's alive. It was a strange thought. A television set on standby will hum, a computer will hum, but we do not think of those as living things, but this, this control unit, indeed this whole room, where ever it was, seemed different somehow, and it was alive. She looked at the ruination around her. Alive, but perhaps in its final illness. A thought occurred to her then, a comparison, and the burnt out 'phone box in Dr Smith's office, and her last memory of stepping over that threshold came back to her. She cast one quick look back at the double doors through which they'd entered, and shook her head, almost laughing. Impossible. Ridiculous. She looked over at Philip, seated in a high backed armchair, lit in a yellow circle of light from a candelabra, poring over some ancient text, and could not prevent a stifled choke of amusement. He was always the same. Where ever he went, give him a library and he would immerse himself in it. She had a sudden conviction that if ever her brother found himself on the bridge of an alien spacecraft he would probably head straight for the library just as quickly as he had in this tomb.

"So... where are we then?" Gwen asked as Philip's head snapped up. "Bodleian bookstacks, or somewhere in Christchurch's rabbit warren?" He smiled. 

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better." The smile faded, almost wiped off his face, and his head dropped back to the book. "And you know where we are." She felt a sharp spark of irritation, and headed across the floor towards him.

"What do you mean by that?" No answer. The walking was making her dizzy again. "Philip, I'm really not feeling well and you aren't helping. Now, can we please leave?" He slammed the book shut, and for one moment it was not her brothers face beneath the short red hair, but something else, something peering out from behind his skin and bone and sinew, something bitter and malignant.

"No." Philip smiled at her- and now he was Philip again. "No, I'm afraid we can't... not 'leave' in the sense you mean. This machine," he gestured around them, "is very unstable. She's in great pain, and she's confused. Time is flowing within her, but only very slowly. From the outside perspective, we've already been in here for two or three days." 

"What utter rubbish are you talking about now...?" she stopped. The thing in her brother's body stood up now, and thrust the book at her. She swallowed, fighting a rising tide of nausea. They were there, crawling out from every page, pouring out from the spine in a great glittering torrent, far more than the book could hold, many creatures moving with one mind and one will. It wasn't Philip. Somehow... perhaps her brother was possessed- she'd never believed in such things but perhaps some horrible thing had somehow got into his mind and - or perhaps he was mad- or perhaps- The right side of her brain interrupted the left. It isn't Philip. Be sure of that if nothing else. Her fist swung round in an arc and struck him on the cheek, and he fell to the floor, and she was running then, running for the door, millions of tiny silverfish bodies popping beneath her feet with every footstep, and the doors were closing in front of her. She whirled as she reached them, now sealed shut. Where was he? 

The candles had gone out, and the only light shone on the console. Gwen looked wildly about the cavernous room. A scuffle, a tiny noise in the dark to the right of her. She turned, grabbing at an ancient wooden hatstand by the doors. Somewhere in the darkness there was a cruel, guttural laugh. 

"Philip!" It was part a plea, part a challenge, and part a scream. She peered into the dark, looking for the thing that wore her brother's body, and caught a flicker of movement on her left. There, by the console, he was bending over the arc-light, and his face as it twisted towards her was etched on her memory for the rest of her life. Ancient malice and bitter hatred were carved into that face, its features still those of her kind, odd, but good brother, but the eyes blazing with a terrible desire for destruction. Then the light went out, and even as it darkened, plunging the room into utter blind blackness, she saw the figure straighten up and run straight for her. Fifty metres or so across the floor from console to door. No sight. Blind in the dark. Gwen screamed, flailing the hatstand before her, her feet rooted to the spot, and as she screamed this time she felt the creatures bubble up behind her eyes, pour from her nose, ears and mouth, flow from her very being. She had to run, but the idea of playing hide and seek in the utter black with that demon stripped her sanity from her and she sank to her knees, even as an unseen hand reached out of the darkness and lightly touched her cheek. 

* 

Mike was shouting something, but the Doctor ignored him. It was a dragon, standing bathed in the flames of the burning house like some great, terrible phoenix. Not the same one that he had travelled with- this must be the female, Chyrista. His eyes locked on to hers, and for a moment a terrible nausea struck him. Not fear of the beast- he'd faced down armies in his time, but an overpowering blow of revulsion and terror that clawed at him from inside his very soul. A thought. Something very bad is happening there- but no clarification as to what 'there' might be. He shunted it to one side, concentrating on more immediate matters. The dragon was arching its neck, gaping its jaws. He came to a halt about twenty metres from Chyrista, close enough to feel the scorching heat from the flames of the house, and struck his cane hard upon the ground. 

"You will stop!" The Doctor's eyes blazed with a fire far more deadly than dragon fire, and he walked forward towards the house. Chyrista hissed defensively. Mike hurried up to him, his eyes darting between house, Doctor, and dragon. He seemed to know what the Doctor needed.

"One old man, alone," he said, keeping pace with the Doctor. The Time Lord nodded, never letting his eyes stray from the dragon. 

"Take the roof from the house." He felt Mike's surprise. No one the human had ever met would use the imperative with so little doubt. It was not the voice of command, it was the voice of the act itself. To disobey would be almost a physical impossibility. Slowly, Chyrista gripped the flaming roof and tore it away.

"Is he dead?" The dragon peered into the smoke and debris and, after a moment, nodded its huge head. The Doctor stopped walking, and for a moment Mike though he almost saw tears form in the man's eyes. Then he spoke again, and his voice was as cold as ice.

"He offended you in some manner?" 

"His... " the dragon hissed, "his nets ensnared me. I fought to get free. A week before it was Dheranaunda who was trapped by them. This creature.." 

"This man had no idea that you even existed," the Doctor grated. "He was just a simple fisherman." He paused. "This is your idea of peaceful co-existence, is it, hmm?" Chyrista reared again, her moment's almost fear passed. The Doctor watched her contemptuously. "Oh, why do you always have to complicate everything," he sighed. "I can just imagine how Bambera and the others will react to this." 

"And they'd be right to." Mike spat. "This is a fine way to repay trust, isn't it?" 

"They will not be told." Chyrista drew in her breath, glaring down at them. The Doctor laughed. 

"Do you not think she might notice? Death by fire? Arson? When she's investigating dragons?" He shook his head. "I think even dear old Lethbridge-Stewart would pick up on that one." He looked up at the dragon again, then spoke more quietly. "Why? I mean... really. Not this in particular, but why spoil it?" Chyrista was silent. "You're afraid, aren't you. Afraid for your offspring and afraid for yourselves, and afraid of both just as much. Afraid of this world just as much." Chyrista looked down at him, and when she spoke, her voice was quite different. 

"Where do we come from?" The Doctor shook his head. 

"I don't know that yet." Then he seemed to deflate. "Go back to the island. Do not come to the vicarage tomorrow. I'll try to..." he looked around. "I'll try to say something to Winifred and Joseph. If I can smooth things over, I'll come over and tell you personally. Now go." Without a word, Chyrista departed into the night. Mike swung the Doctor round. 

"You can't still take their side? What about..." he gestured wordlessly into the burning ruin of the house. The Doctor looked at him, his face blank. 

"Can't I? I'm not a human or a dragon, Michael de Gris-nez. It's not my business to dispense justice, or to decide on a fit punishment for a crime. That man is dead... my business is with the living." 

"We can't just let it slide!" Mike grabbed the Doctor's arm. "Chyrista killed a man, for Christ's sake! You think UNIT are going to..." 

"UNIT will do precisely as they're told." The Doctor turned away. "You will make the various human arrangements for dealing with such things," he gestured back at the house. "I will wake the Brigadier and Captain Viner and speak with them." 

"There has to be..." 

"Vengeance?" The alien man looked bleakly at him. "You know, I'm seriously considering taking that toy out of your species' toybox for good." Then he walked back into the night. 

* 

_She was writing, always writing, and now a claw rested upon her shoulder._

* 

"Well, so much for peace then." sighed Viner. Bambera nodded.

"I'm sorry, Doctor." she looked at him challengingly, "but you must realise I can't let this slide." 

"I realise that." His face was pale, Mike realised, and under all the cold calculation the alien- he did not doubt it, and could no longer think of the Doctor as 'the man'- looked sick at the thought of what was to come, almost as sick as Andwell, sitting numb-faced at the foot of the kitchen table, eyes blank with horror. The Doctor looked up. "But does it have to be violence?"

"We can hardly lock them up in prison!" 

"So that's your reason for genocide, is it? They transgress a few or your ideas about civilised beings and so you exterminate them because it's tidier?" The Doctor's eyes blazed. 

"A few of my ideas?" Bambera stiffened. "They killed a man, or have you forgotten that?" 

"And you, a soldier, you've never killed?" The Doctor stood up, never letting his gaze waver from the Brigadier's. "They killed in a manner you don't find acceptable. What's the matter? Weren't they wearing dog tags?" He brought his fist down on the table- hard, and snapped his head round to face Andwell. "What does that book you're so fond of say? Turn the other cheek?" 

"We have to..." 

"You have to teach them to behave differently. Nothing you do to Chyrista will bring the fisherman back. They don't understand your society, your justice... Chyrista thought she was dispensing justice herself!" 

"And you support that, do you?" Now Bambera was angry, getting to her feet in turn. "Doctor, I don't want to wipe them out, believe it or not, but my responsibility is to protect the people of this planet, and I'm damned if I'm going to be stopped from doing just that, by you or anyone." 

"She didn't understand." The Doctor sat down now, all his anger seemingly folded back away once more. "These creatures... they speak like you, they think like you... but they are not your kind. You're judging them as people." 

"Isn't that what you've always preached? Not to treat aliens as dumb mindless animals?" 

"These creatures are not aliens." The Doctor closed his eyes. "How much 'justice' would you enforce on a flatlander for making a mistake about height? How much do you want to sue Homer Simpson for irresponsible parenting?" He shook his head, his brows drawing together in a pained frown. "They don't come from our kind of reality at all, Winifred... they're simplified... a cartoon sketch of a dragon by someone who's taken the time to craft a body, but then not bothered to invent a believable dragon personality. That's why they don't remember their pasts- they don't have any." 

"Then you think these creatures are created?" Andwell started up. The Doctor regarded him steadily. 

"Oh yes, you were right about that, my friend. They are new... horribly new. Half formed personalities, a random jumble of character traits that don't add up..." He narrowed his eyes. "Trust me, I know what it's like to come into the world in that state, better than you can ever know." 

Captain Viner exchanged a worried glance with the Brigadier and leaned forward. 

"Then who's created them?" The Doctor shook his head, glanced at Andwell and cast an ironic look upwards. 

"Well, I can tell you who hasn't..." He looked back at the Captain. "I don't know. I came here to find clues, to examine the dragons more closely, but as yet I've accomplished almost nothing... but I will tell you, Bambera, that they are just as much the innocent victims as anyone else here. They don't know what's going on, don't know who or what they are. They're afraid." 

She wavered, and he pushed on. 

"I can speak to them, try to teach them that they mustn't attack, no matter the provocation... and I can make them give you a promise, Brigadier, a promise I'll see they hold to. Will that be enough?" Mike looked between the two of them. Finally, Bambera spoke. 

"Yes." The Doctor sighed. 

"Thank you, Brigadier. We have to help these creatures, and we need to understand them... for our sakes as well as theirs, because I've got a nasty feeling things may get a lot worse very soon."

* * *

Thanks to **drox** for the review, and vote of confidence. 


End file.
